Olympic swimmer Réka György calls out Virginia Governor Spanberger for withdrawing female sports regulation
Hungarian Olympian Réka György, who lost a place in an NCAA swimming final after competing against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, criticized Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s administration for abandoning a proposed regulation intended to protect female sports and private spaces.
György was one of three female swimmers who petitioned the Virginia Board of Health to enact the regulation last year. The board unanimously approved the petition under former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, but the regulatory action was withdrawn in July after Spanberger took office.
"It’s really sad for me because I had the petition filed a year ago, and Youngkin approved it and wanted to take the next step and protect female athletes and female spaces in Virginia," György told OutKick.
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"I don’t like to see that people are using their power, especially political power, to make decisions and hurt other people. And also, it’s coming from a female."
György added that she was "really disappointed" by the decision.
György filed the petition in April 2025 alongside former Roanoke College swimmers Lily Mullens and Carter Satterfield. It asked the Board of Health to adopt regulations preventing biological males from participating on female-only athletic teams or entering female-designated spaces where women and girls could be undressing.
After receiving more than 2,300 public comments, the board voted 14–0 in August 2025 to begin the regulatory process. The Youngkin administration subsequently approved a Notice of Intended Regulatory Action, which was published that November.
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However, the Spanberger administration withdrew the action on July 30, after an additional public-comment period had concluded. The withdrawal was not accompanied by an announcement from the governor’s office and was later published in the Virginia Register of Regulations.
The official notice said the State Board of Health would not proceed "upon review of statutory authority."
György questioned why the administration did not call greater public attention to the decision.
"I have a feeling that she’s afraid of the backlash of people, what they’re going to say or think," György said. "Other than that, I don’t know what her motivation is."
György’s advocacy stems from her experience at the 2022 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships. The Virginia Tech swimmer finished 17th in the preliminary round of the 500-yard freestyle, one place short of advancing to the consolation final.
Thomas, a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman, qualified for the championship final and went on to win the national title.
"Because the rule-makers let him compete in the women’s category, I got bumped out from the final," György said. "I got 17th, and I wasn’t allowed to swim in the finals. It ended up being me who got knocked out of the finals at night."
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György represented Hungary at the 2016 Rio Olympics and was a two-time ACC champion and two-time NCAA All-American during her career at Virginia Tech. She said she had devoted approximately 18 years to swimming before her final collegiate championship appearance.
"I put everything into swimming that I had," she said. "The 2022 NCAA Championships was my senior year in college, so I was ready to retire from swimming, but before I did that, give my best. I had everything that I was capable of putting into practices to prepare myself to give my best at that competition.
"And the chance to actually swim in the final was taken away."
György also recalled sharing a women’s locker room with Thomas during the championship meet.
"You were in just constant fear," she said. "You had no idea when he was going to enter the locker room."
György explained that putting on a high-level racing suit can take between 15 and 25 minutes, preventing swimmers from simply changing quickly and leaving.
"I was always looking behind my shoulder because I had no idea when my privacy was going to be robbed away," she said. "You try to cover yourself, which usually you don’t do because you are surrounded by other females and you don’t have that issue. But that competition was different."
The experience ultimately prompted György to become an outspoken advocate for sex-separated athletic competition and private spaces.
"I just had this feeling that I had to speak up because, obviously, the people who were in charge of that competition didn’t do anything to protect us females," she said. "One day, maybe I will have a daughter, and I don’t want my daughter to be in a situation where I had to share the locker room and compete against a male."
György, who continues to live in Virginia, joined the petition effort after being contacted about the controversy involving Mullens, Satterfield and the Roanoke College women’s swimming team.
In 2023, members of the team objected when a transgender student sought to join the women’s roster. Roanoke College later said the student had chosen not to compete.
György said she has not yet contacted Spanberger because she only recently learned the regulatory action had been withdrawn, but she plans to seek a conversation with the governor.
"I want to tell her that I hope she sees where I’m coming from," György said. "I hope she sees where other people are coming from when we are trying to protect little girls and females in sports and women-only spaces."
"Title IX was created for a reason," she added. "I really do hope that she is going to follow this rule, and she is going to stand up for women in Virginia."
